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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24436606">Orchid</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/pseuds/Thimblerig'>Thimblerig</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek: Picard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bittersweet, Bruce Maddox is my problematic something, Canon-Typical Behavior, Family Feels, Gen, What happens in Freecloud, implied squick</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 08:47:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>470</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24436606</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/pseuds/Thimblerig</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“What was she like?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dahj perches on the workbench, between a stand of cultured hybrid orchids and the synaptic transceiver crown. There is a box marked with the swirling arrows of a bonded courier which she holds carefully, even as she kicks one of her feet like a young child. “Dr Jurati,” she clarifies, her eyes very bright.</em>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bruce Maddox &amp; Dahj Asha, past Bruce Maddox/Agnes Jurati</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Orchid</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I'm kind of on the fence about warning for this. There's nothing that would warrant an Archive Warning but... Freecloud is its own warning, I guess.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The sprawling cities of Freecloud, and its low blanketing clouds, throw a dreamy, insincere light through the high windows of Bruce’s workshop. Even in the daytime, the sky does not scrub clean. Bruce misses again, sharp as a blade, the baking sunlight of Coppelius Station, the operatic thrill of the monsoon lightning. Everything muddles, here.</p><p>He sighs, and turns back to his cybernetics journal. He might be hiding out in a tiny lab, but the Work does not have to cease. Though there’s precious little of weight being published these days, in an unloved field. Bruce finishes trudging through a derivative and illogical rehash of basic positronic formulae and flicks to the next paper: “Kludge or Kintsugi: Approaches to Error Correction in Complex Arrays”. He smiles and touches the Author line. “Agnes.”</p><p>“What was she like?”</p><p>Dahj perches on the workbench, between a stand of cultured hybrid orchids and the synaptic transceiver crown. There is a box marked with the swirling arrows of a bonded courier which she holds carefully, even as she kicks one of her feet like a young child. “Dr Jurati,” she clarifies, her eyes very bright.</p><p>Bruce takes off his glasses and smiles at his daughter. “She was young, when I knew her. Painfully earnest. Brilliant - of course she was brilliant - always turning corners that I didn’t think to look at. You get that from her, I think.” He ducks his head and cleans his glasses, careful of the old-fashioned glass lenses. His own eyes, he knows, would be bright, but not from curiosity. “But you’ll meet her soon enough.”</p><p>He feels rather than hears Dahj shift. “I won’t remember anything,” she says, voice very small.</p><p>Bruce looks up and tells her, with perfect truth, “Agnes will <em> love </em> you.” Dahj wrinkles her nose - another thing she got from Agnes, he thinks.</p><p>Putting down the padd he was reading, he takes the courier box from his daughter’s hand and sets it aside carefully. “Dahj,” he says, “go find your sister. We’ll make a proper family dinner of it, toast old friends and new beginnings, and great adventures and…”</p><p>She smiles again, though there is pain in it, slipping off his bench and heading to the outer door of their little lab. At the exit her chin ticks to the side, and she adds: “To family. We’ll toast our family.” </p><p>He lifts his glasses in salute, then puts them on and glances to the objects behind him. It will be a good half hour before Dahj brings Soji back from her errand, and family dinners are always best with everybody doing the cooking. After a moment of hesitation, he picks up the padd again. Agnes is in there, her work like streaks of gold in the dull clay of the journal.</p><p>The xB part from Bjayzl can wait.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>// <em>Kludge or Kintsugi: Approaches to Error Correction</em> - a “kludge” or “kluge” is a term for a quick and dirty fix for a problem, sometimes used in computer science or aeronautics. (More on the word here:  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kludge)</p><p><em>Kintsugi</em> on the other hand, is a technique developed in Japan for mending broken pottery with lacquer mixed with gold dust, and related processes, making the broken places glow instead of hiding them. (More on that here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi)</p><p>// I will go to my grave believing that Bruce knew what Bjayzl was doing with the xBs.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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